half-right, Renshaw,” he said, recovering his balance. “Her name is Rachel, but it’s not Lyndon, and she’s not anyone’s intended.” He grinned and looked full into Heath’s face. “It’s McCarrick. Rachel McCarrick. She and Jed were married in Ohio.
“She’s Jed’s wife.”
JED’S WIFE.
At first Heath didn’t think he’d heard right. He’d read Jed’s unsigned will, and the letter from the woman. It had been clear that Jed hadn’t married her yet, that he planned to do it soon after she arrived.
Someone was lying. But who?
Heath didn’t have the chance to call Sean out. The female was taking Sweet’s arm and climbing down from the buckboard, almost stumbling as she stared at the house.
Sean dismounted, tossed Ulysses’s reins over the hitching post and went to meet her. Heath gave her a closer look. Her eyes were brown, a few shades lighter than her dark hair. She wasn’t pretty, but she wasn’t ugly, either. She was somewhere around thirty years, not old, but there was a tightness around her mouth, a kind of tension that told him she wasn’t easy in her mind.
So this was the woman who’d written the letter that Jed had carried like something precious. The woman he’d cared enough about to woo and win and bring all the way to Texas.
She looked in his direction. Her shoulders lifted, and she started toward him, her plain brown skirts swishing with each firm step. He could feel her hostility through his skin and in his bones. She didn’t even glance at the bundle in his arms.
“Mrs. Rachel McCarrick,” Sean said, gliding up beside her. “Holden Renshaw, foreman of Dog Creek.”
At first Heath thought the woman was going to back away, but then he realized her hostility covered something else: fear. He could smell it sure as he could smell a skunk at ten paces.
“Ma’am,” he said coldly, briefly touching the brim of his hat. “Welcome to Dog Creek.”
She studied his face. “Am I welcome, Mr. Renshaw?” she asked.
He didn’t understand the question, and he didn’t much care. She wasn’t denying that she was Jed’s wife, and that meant she was lying. He hated that she was here, hated that she’d invaded this place and claimed it for herself, that a stranger held Jed’s loyalty just because she was human.
But she obviously didn’t know Jed was dead, and neither did Sean.
“So you’re Jed’s wife?” he said, making her feel a little of what he was.
She flinched, so slightly that he knew no human would have caught it. “I understand that Mr. Mc—my husband is away,” she said.
“He’s been in Kansas, selling cattle,” he said. “Surprised you didn’t know that, Mrs. McCarrick.”
Her upper teeth, white and straight, grazed her lower lip. “Of course I knew he had been elsewhere on business, but he was to have returned by the time I arrived.”
Maybe she was telling the truth about that part, maybe not. Heath smiled, not trying too hard to make it friendly. “I don’t know what you’re used to back East, ma’am, but out here, things don’t run by clockwork.”
“You expected me, did you not?”
He knew a challenge when he heard it. Jed had surely planned to meet her when she arrived. Maybe she wondered why his foreman hadn’t known to fetch her in Javelina.
“Jed didn’t say when you was comin’,” he said.
“He told me,” Sean said.
More lies. “You know when he’ll be back, too?” Heath asked with a curl of his lip.
Sean hesitated, and little worry lines appeared between the woman’s straight dark brows. Heath came within an inch of feeling sorry for her.
An inch could be a long way if you wanted it to be.
Sean cleared his throat. “Mrs. McCarrick is weary from her long journey,” he said. “I’ll escort her into the house.”
One long stare shut Sean up again. Heath looked down at the baby, so covered up that it looked like a pile of rags. It chose that moment to stir and whimper. Sean jumped. So did the woman. They both stared in disbelief at the lump curled against Heath’s chest.
“You know anything about kids, Mrs. McCarrick?” Heath asked roughly.
She blinked at him. “I … I beg your—”
He showed her the baby’s pale face. “It’s ailin’. Can you make it well?”
Her gaze moved from the baby’s face to his, astonishment wiping every other emotion from her features. “Where … whose baby is this?”
“Someone left it, and I found it. Can you fix it?”
Surprised as she was, she landed on her feet just like a cat. “How long has it been since it has eaten?”
“It won’t eat at all.”
Accusing eyes met his, and she took the baby from his arms, taking care not to touch Heath more than she had to. “What have you been giving it?” she demanded.
His hackles rose again. “Some cow’s milk and stuff in a bottle. That’s all I had.”
“It must have milk. Fresh milk.”
Relief burned through his body like strong whiskey. She knew what to do. She could keep the baby alive.
Maybe she could do more than that. She was holding the baby close and humming softly, just like a real mother.
Heath cut the thought before it could get any further. He would be gone with the baby as soon as it could travel. “Go on in,” he said. “I’ll see to that milk.”
She met his gaze with a flash of defiance and walked toward the house, still cooing. Heath turned on his boot heel and walked toward the barn. Sean stepped into his path.
“What in hell do you think you’re doing, Renshaw?” he demanded. “I don’t know what kind of game you’re playing, but if you think you can order Jed’s wife around like a common servant—”
Heath took a single step toward him.
Sean backed away fast, his hands half raised, but his fear wasn’t enough to shut him up. “Where did you get that baby?” he demanded.
“It ain’t your concern, McCarrick,” Heath said slowly and clearly.
“It is my concern if it affects Dog Creek.”
“You never gave a damn about Dog Creek.” Heath leaned into Sean, who took another step backward. “Where did you meet her?”
Sean rolled his eyes like a horse about to spook, then took himself in hand. “In Javelina. Jed told me to watch for her.”
“Jed never told you a damn thing.”
“He never told you, either.” Sean attempted a grin. “If only I’d had a mirror to show you the look on your face when you found out who she was.”
Heath bared his teeth. “Take a look at it now.”
Hunching his shoulders, Sean laughed nervously. “Wondering what else Jed was hiding from you?”
“I knew he was fixin’ to marry.”
“But not that he was married.”
So Sean believed it. Heath saw no reason to set him straight and a couple of good ones not to. Sean would be boiling in his own juices by now, much as he tried to hide it by trying to defend the woman. He’d always expected Dog Creek to be handed to him on a silver platter once Jed was gone. He didn’t have to know about the wills, or Jed’s death, to realize that his